Hometown Hero: Pam Larson brings awareness to PTSD

Hometown Hero: Pam Larson brings awareness to PTSD

Our Hometown Hero is a De Pere native hoping to bring more awareness to PTSD and traumatic brain injuries.

Ft. Jackson, SC. (WFRV)--Pam Larson is a De Pere native who answered the call to service and became an Army mechanic. She was wounded in action in Iraq and would proudly serve again.

During her deployment, she met Sergeant Robert Larson, an army combat engineer. Eventually the couple got married and served two deployments together. That include one tour where Robert's HumVee was blown in half by an I-E-D. He was hospitalized and unconscious for three days. He awoke with no apparent serious injuries and returned to duty a week later.

Pamela Larson, "He didn't get treatment for his brain injury until 2009 because nobody knew he had it."

Pam herself suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. So she knew immediately why sudden loud noises made Robert act defensively. Once he even left home for eight days before being found at a Minnesota campground, where he'd set up booby traps for protection. Pam found few people or resources to help.

Pamela Larson, "And there's nobody to tell you this is normal behavior, when then all come, and it affects us all differently. I've been noticing a pattern in the lack of medical care that's readily available..."

Pam Larson's battle for better brain injury and P-T-S-D care for military families resulted in being named Fort Jackson, South Carolina's "Military Spouse of the Year". So she's using her web audition video for the national title to raise awareness.

Pamela Larson, "It something that's only been diagnosed for the past four-years that we've been getting a better understanding of what a brain injury is."

Knowledge that Pam hopes can bring Robert back home fully.

Pamela Larson, "At some point he's going to snap back to the reality that we were in. That everything was great ."